(The following article by Stacie Hamel was posted on the Omaha World-Herald website on December 5. John Bentley is the BLET’s spokeman.)
OMAHA, Neb. — Union Pacific is preparing to test two technologies it believes could save the Omaha-based railroad at least $150 million a year and possibly as much as $240 million a year in fuel costs, while simultaneously improving safety.
Last year, U.P. spent about $3 billion on fuel.
U.P. will begin pilot tests of a train-control system and a fuel adviser for locomotive engineers next summer.
The fuel savings could be enough, a U.P. official said, to offset the cost of deploying what’s known in the industry as Positive Train Control, a technology listed on the National Transportation Safety Board’s most-wanted list since 1990 and touted as a major advance in avoiding train collisions, accidents from speeding trains and deaths.
Until recently, the railroad industry has pursued offsetting the cost of train-control systems through reducing train-crew size, which must be negotiated with labor unions. The savings from cutting crews to a single “transportation employee” had been estimated at $1 billion a year industrywide.
The industry recently dropped efforts to negotiate cutting crews during the current round of bargaining because the issue had grown too contentious, according to the National Carriers’ Conference Committee, which negotiates with 13 labor unions on behalf of more than 30 railroads, including U.P.
Train-control systems use satellites, computers and radio signals to monitor trains’ location and speed. The system is designed to identify trains in danger of colliding and stop them before collision occurs..
Implementing a train-control system could cost U.P. from $600 million to $1 billion, including the cost of the fuel technology, said Jeff Young, assistant vice president of transportation systems.
“You look at that kind of cost, you need to have some benefit to deploy it,” he said. “That is why we’re focusing on the fuel.”
The Federal Railroad Administration has not yet approved any train-control system, though several tests are ongoing. The agency will monitor U.P.’s pilot tests, beginning with tests in Nebraska next summer.
The National Transportation Safety Board has kept train control on its list of 10 most-wanted safety improvements during annual updates to the list, which was created in 1990. Train control now is ranked as slowly progressing.
The U.P. pilot tests will take place in Nebraska beginning next summer between North Platte and South Morrill and beginning in the third quarter between Spokane, Wash., and Eastport, Idaho.
Equipment installation has begun in Nebraska. Engineers and conductors probably will begin training in May, Young said.
Wabtec Railway Electronics, based in Wilmerding, Pa., developed the system U.P. will test. In conjunction with the pilot program, U.P. will test an energy-saving system called LEADER – Locomotive Engineer Assist/Display Event Recorder – by New York Air Brake, based in Watertown, N.Y.
The system will use data from the train-control system to advise the engineer of the most-efficient way to run a locomotive for the best fuel economy, depending on the terrain, distance to a stop, weight of the train and other factors.
“The difference between the best engineer and the worst engineer on fuel consumption on the same territory is like 30 percent,” Young said. “We want to make the worst engineer like the best engineer.
“We think, conservatively, there is at least 5 percent fuel savings from this technology,” he said, which means possible minimum savings of $150 million a year, depending on the price of fuel.
The railroad estimates savings could reach 8 percent, or $240 million a year.
At least one labor union would favor a technology that could help pay for train control, a union spokesman said. The Cleveland-based United Transportation Union represents conductors, who would have been the crew members to go had the railroads successfully negotiated a reduction in crew size.
“The UTU has always supported PTC and continues to support PTC,” said union spokesman Frank Wilner. “Until PTC is perfected and ready for implementation, there can be no discussion of reduced crew size.”
A spokesman for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, also based in Cleveland, said the union recognizes that train-control systems have potential to save lives, “but the BLET is firm in our belief that it should not replace the eyes and ears of operating crews.”
John Bentley said the union’s position is that train control should assist engineers and conductors. “We don’t believe it should be used to replace train crew members.”
He said he and other union officials did not have enough information about the LEADER system to comment.
If U.P.’s pilot tests are completed to the Federal Railroad Administration’s satisfaction, the railroad could deploy the technologies quickly throughout its system.
The two areas where U.P. will test the two technologies include the three signal environments in which its trains operate: “dark” territory with no signals and no direct communication with dispatch; centralized traffic control (contact with dispatch) with signals; and centralized traffic without signals.
Testing in all three environments will allow U.P. to move quickly if the federal government gives its approval.
“When we prove to the acceptance of the FRA, we’re free to deploy to the rest of the railroad,” Young said.
U.P. is the only railroad testing train control and the fuel system together.
“There’s a lot of money to be saved,” Young said. “We’re leading the integration of the two products. Obviously, others are interested in what we’re doing.”